Meta faces US lawmaker scrutiny over removal of lawyer ads for social media addiction cases

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Meta should not have removed advertisements by attorneys seeking clients who claim they were harmed by social media platforms, two U.S. senators said on Friday in a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Here are some details:Republican Senator ​Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar ​wrote a letter to Zuckerberg criticizing his ⁠company’s choice to purge the ads from its platforms ​after Axios first reported it and Meta confirmed it.The ​attorneys were trying to recruit new plaintiffs for ongoing lawsuits over social media addiction.“We’re actively defending ourselves against these lawsuits ​and are removing ads that attempt to recruit ​plaintiffs for them,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a ‌statement. “We ⁠will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful.”Meta, Google, Snapchat and TikTok are facing thousands of lawsuits ​accusing the companies ​of designing ⁠platforms that are fueling a youth mental health crisis.The removal of the advertisements ​is “nothing more than an attempt to ​preserve ⁠a harmful business model at all costs,” the senators wrote in the letter.Blackburn is running for governor in ⁠Tennessee ​and often touts her work ​on social media regulation to voters. Klobuchar is running for governor ​of Minnesota.